DOCSLIB.ORG

Ecthr, M'bala M'bala V. France

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

FIFTH SECTION DECISION Application no. 25239/13 Dieudonné M’BALA M’BALA against France [Extracts] The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 20 October 2015 as a Chamber composed of: Josep Casadevall, President, Angelika Nußberger, Boštjan M. Zupančič, Vincent A. De Gaetano, André Potocki, Helena Jäderblom, Síofra O’Leary, judges, and Milan Blaško, Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to the above application lodged on 10 April 2013, Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant, Having deliberated, decides as follows: THE FACTS 1. The applicant, Mr Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, is a French national, who was born in 1966 and lives in Paris. He was represented before the Court by Mr J. Verdier, a lawyer practising in Aurillac. 2. The French Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr F. Alabrune, director of the legal department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2 M'BALA M'BALA v. FRANCE DECISION A. The circumstances of the case 3. The applicant is a comedian, known by the stage name “Dieudonné”. He has also engaged in political activities; inter alia he stood as a candidate in the European Parliament elections in 2004 (“EuroPalestine list”) and 2009 (“anti-Zionist list”). 4. On 26 December 2008 he staged a performance at the “Zénith” venue in Paris in the context of a show entitled “J’ai fait l’con” (“I’ve been a naughty boy”). 5. At the end of the show he invited Robert Faurisson to join him on stage and to be applauded by the audience. Mr Faurisson has received a number of convictions in France for his negationist or revisionist opinions, mainly his denial of the existence of gas chambers in the Nazi concentration camps. In particular, he was convicted on 4 July 2007 by the Paris Court of Appeal for denial of a crime against humanity. The applicant called on an actor wearing a pair of striped pyjamas with a stitched-on star of David to award Mr Faurisson a “prize for unfrequentability and insolence”. 6. The incident was recorded by the police, who also noted the presence of Jean-Marie Le Pen, then Chairman of the Front National party, who was watching the show from a wing, separated from the rest of the audience. 7. On 29 December 2008 the public prosecutor at the Paris tribunal de grande instance opened a preliminary investigation into the facts which he entrusted to the criminal investigation department of the police. 8. The investigators found footage of the relevant part of the show on an on-line video-sharing website. They transcribed the dialogue as follows: “Dieudonné: You know, the Zénith is always a pretty important event for me every year, so whenever I want to do it, it gets harder each time. I said to myself: I’ve still got to find an idea for the Zénith this time – an idea to slide it up ‘em [pour leur glisser une quenelle] in a big way. Well I got thinking – it does happen sometimes – and found a bit of inspiration in the very complimentary review by Bernard H (inaudible – boos in the audience) who described the event at the Zénith, the show, that performance, that event at the Zénith, as the biggest anti-Semitic rally since the Second World War, so he clearly left me a bit of room for improvement, because I said to myself, I’ll have to do better this time, won’t I? So if you want to take part in what is called a collective ‘up yours’ [glissage de quenelle], I’m going to call up someone who’s going to drive them bananas – you’d like that, wouldn’t you? (noisy approval in audience). So the person who’s about to come on stage is a scandal in his own right, I’m warning you already ... he’s probably the most unfrequentable person in France (shouts in the room: ‘Sarkozy’). Sarkozy, he’s kosher, he’s become frequentable – but tomorrow morning all that will be remembered of tonight’s performance is the moment when this man came on stage; he was beaten up by the Israeli occupation militias, the BETAR and the LDJ, he was left for dead by the side of the road and the man, incidentally, who saved his life, who took him to hospital, that man was forced to apologise for what he did in the papers. This bloke – I didn’t know him until a few years ago, and still don’t know him very well – I know he’s the most unfrequentable person, so I said to myself, if we want to do something, something big, because they’re here, the press are with us, so tomorrow M'BALA M'BALA v. FRANCE DECISION 3 ... (boos in the audience). Listen, the best way to get back at them is to welcome a man who started out in poetry before expounding the ideas for which he is known. A big round of applause for Mr Robert Faurisson ... (applause) clap harder, harder, put more into it, more, more (Mr Faurisson enters, accolade with Dieudonné). Well, well, there’s one thing that’s clear, your applause will resound tomorrow morning in the media, quite a long way ... Robert I think you fully deserve this prize ... Yes, the sketch, the sketch, would not be complete – if Jacky, I’m going to ask Jacky, my loyal technician, to award Robert the prize for unfrequentability and insolence, Jacky, in his garment of light. Photographers shoot away ...! (an individual wearing a pair of check pyjamas with a star of David enters and hands Mr Faurisson an object bearing three apples). Just look at that scandal – like it – round of applause ... (shouts in the audience: ‘Faurisson is right’ ‘he’s a winner’). Robert Faurisson: A word, and maybe more than a word, ‘zumbélélé’ to start with, to you Jacky, to Pierre Panet, to Sandra, I think. Listen, you’ve told us ‘I’ve been a naughty boy’. No doubt ... but tonight you’re really asking for it. Dieudonné: Yeah, I think so, it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, probably. But life is short – very short – let’s mess around and be disobedient as much as possible. Robert Faurisson: Thanks, because I’m really not used to this kind of welcome – I’m supposed to be a gangster of history. It was Le Monde which said that and Le Monde is always right (shouts in the audience: ‘Jacques Mesrine’). You’re right anyway to say that I’ve been subjected to special treatment ten times. Including one time when I even almost got myself killed – and, can you believe it, the man who saved me without knowing who I was, when he found out, the next day, he told the police that he regretted having saved my life. Dieudonné: He was beaten up by the Zionist militias, who are very busy. ... (shouts in the audience ‘bastard!’). Robert Faurisson: Can I just add something ... Dieudonné: Yes, no problem Robert, the musicians are getting ready, we’re going to end with a zumbélélé by way of freedom of expression ... Robert Faurisson: I can get you into trouble... Dieudonné: Euh...Yes... you can ... Freedom of expression. Robert Faurisson: We’re going ... Well ... You don’t know what I say or what I believe. Some of you or most of you don’t know, or only know what the media dare to say about me, all those stupidities they attribute to revisionists. You know that in France there’s a special law that will be used to send our friend to the seventeenth division before long, as it’s been used against me – so many times I’ve lost count. I can simply tell you this, that I have no right to ... It’s the law, as you were rightly saying. I have no right to tell you what revisionism, what those people call negationism, actually is (applause) but I can tell you ... Yes, if they’re so keen on calling me a negationist, I’ll call them ‘affirmationists’ – and you can spell that word as you please (applause). That’s it ... listen to me ... it’s been for 34 years now, 1974-1998 [sic] that I’ve been treated in my country like a Palestinian. I’ve been treated like a Palestinian and I can’t stop myself supporting their cause (shouts and applause in the audience). I have no political opinion but I found it moving what you said at the end about Palestine (shouts in the audience: ‘long live Palestine’). 4 M'BALA M'BALA v. FRANCE DECISION Dieudonné: I can confirm our undying support for Palestine; I’m going to ask the musicians now to get ready because unfortunately we’re coming to the end. In any event, your presence here, our handshake, is already a scandal in itself – tomorrow it will be in the news and you’ll be able, no doubt, to follow the debate. Freedom of expression – thank you all, thanks for your solidarity, I salute you all, I doff my hat to you. Freedom of expression. Thank you, thanks for your solidarity. All the best, hat tip to you all. Freedom of expression.” 9. The investigators interviewed J.S., the sound and lighting technician during the show. He said that he would come on stage during each performance for a sketch in which the applicant reacted to a proposal by Nicolas Sarkozy, then President of France, to have every primary-school pupil in the CM2 class “sponsor” a child who died in the concentration camps.
Recommended publications
  • Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism in Iran: the Role of Identity Processes

    Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism in Iran: the Role of Identity Processes

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Nottingham Trent Institutional Repository (IRep) 1 Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran: the role of identity processes Rusi Jaspal De Montfort University, Leicester, UK Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism constitute two important ideological building blocks of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet, there is no existing research into the psychosocial motives underlying the manifestation of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism at the institutional level in Iran. Here it is argued that there is much heuristic and predictive value in applying tenets of identity process theory (IPT), a socio-psychological model of identity threat and action, to the primarily socio-historical literature on anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran. The paper provides a summary of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and ‘new anti-Semitism’ and IPT. The substantive section of the paper explores (i) how anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism may restore feelings of belonging in the Muslim world and beyond; (ii) the inter-relations between ingroup and outgroup self-efficacy; (iii) the psychosocial motivation to maintain Shiite ideology and Khomeini’s legacy; and (iv) the construction of Jews and Israel in terms of a threat to group continuity. It is suggested that insights into the motivational principles underlying anti-Semitism and anti- Zionism at the institutional level may inform empirical research into social representations of Jews and Israel in Iran. More broadly, this paper highlights the potential contribution of social psychology to existing work on anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the humanities.
  • Brigitte Bailer-Galanda “Revisionism”1 in Germany and Austria: the Evolution of a Doctrine

    Brigitte Bailer-Galanda “Revisionism”1 in Germany and Austria: the Evolution of a Doctrine

    www.doew.at Brigitte Bailer-Galanda “Revisionism”1 in Germany and Austria: The Evolution of a Doctrine Published in: Hermann Kurthen/Rainer Erb/Werner Bergmann (ed.), Anti-Sem- itism and Xenophobia in Germany after Unification, New York–Oxford 1997 Development of “revisionism” since 1945 Most people understand so called „revisionism“ as just another word for the movement of holocaust denial (Benz 1994; Lipstadt 1993; Shapiro 1990). Therefore it was suggested lately to use the word „negationism“ instead. How- ever in the author‘s point of view „revisionism“ covers some more topics than just the denying of the National Socialist mass murders. Especially in Germany and Austria there are some more points of National Socialist politics some people have tried to minimize or apologize since 1945, e. g. the responsibility for World War II, the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 (quite a modern topic), (the discussion) about the number of the victims of the holocaust a. s. o.. In the seventies the late historian Martin Broszat already called that movement „run- ning amok against reality“ (Broszat 1976). These pseudo-historical writers, many of them just right wing extremist publishers or people who quite rapidly turned to right wing extremists, really try to prove that history has not taken place, just as if they were able to make events undone by denying them. A conception of “negationism” (Auerbach 1993a; Fromm and Kernbach 1994, p. 9; Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz 1994) or “holocaust denial” (Lipstadt 1993, p. 20) would neglect the additional components of “revision- ism”, which are logically connected with the denying of the holocaust, this being the extreme variant.
  • Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe

    Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe

    Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization": Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe Michael Shafir Motto: They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds. I put this book here for you, who once lived So that you should visit us no more Czeslaw Milosz Introduction* Holocaust denial in post-Communist East Central Europe is a fact. And, like most facts, its shades are many. Sometimes, denial comes in explicit forms – visible and universally-aggressive. At other times, however, it is implicit rather than explicit, particularistic rather than universal, defensive rather than aggressive. And between these two poles, the spectrum is large enough to allow for a large variety of forms, some of which may escape the eye of all but the most versatile connoisseurs of country-specific history, culture, or immediate political environment. In other words, Holocaust denial in the region ranges from sheer emulation of negationism elsewhere in the world to regional-specific forms of collective defense of national "historic memory" and to merely banal, indeed sometime cynical, attempts at the utilitarian exploitation of an immediate political context.1 The paradox of Holocaust negation in East Central Europe is that, alas, this is neither "good" nor "bad" for the Jews.2 But it is an important part of the * I would like to acknowledge the support of the J. and O. Winter Fund of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for research conducted in connection with this project. I am indebted to friends and colleagues who read manuscripts of earlier versions and provided comments and corrections.
  • Jews, Radical Catholic Traditionalists, and the Extreme Right

    Jews, Radical Catholic Traditionalists, and the Extreme Right

    “Artisans … for Antichrist”: Jews, Radical Catholic Traditionalists, and the Extreme Right Mark Weitzman* The Israeli historian, Israel J. Yuval, recently wrote: The Christian-Jewish debate that started nineteen hundred years ago, in our day came to a conciliatory close. … In one fell swoop, the anti-Jewish position of Christianity became reprehensible and illegitimate. … Ours is thus the first generation of scholars that can and may discuss the Christian-Jewish debate from a certain remove … a post- polemical age.1 This appraisal helped spur Yuval to write his recent controversial book Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Yuval based his optimistic assessment on the strength of the reforms in Catholicism that stemmed from the adoption by the Second Vatican Council in 1965 of the document known as Nostra Aetate. Nostra Aetate in Michael Phayer’s words, was the “revolution- ary” document that signified “the Catholic church’s reversal of its 2,000 year tradition of antisemitism.”2 Yet recent events in the relationship between Catholics and Jews could well cause one to wonder about the optimism inherent in Yuval’s pronouncement. For, while the established Catholic Church is still officially committed to the teachings of Nostra Aetate, the opponents of that document and of “modernity” in general have continued their fight and appear to have gained, if not a foothold, at least a hearing in the Vatican today. And, since in the view of these radical Catholic traditionalists “[i]nternational Judaism wants to radically defeat Christianity and to be its substitute” using tools like the Free- * Director of Government Affairs, Simon Wiesenthal Center.
  • The Geopolitics of Laïcité in a Multicultural Age: French Secularism, Educational Policy and the Spatial Management of Difference

    The Geopolitics of Laïcité in a Multicultural Age: French Secularism, Educational Policy and the Spatial Management of Difference

    The Geopolitics of Laïcité in a Multicultural Age: French Secularism, Educational Policy and the Spatial Management of Difference Christopher A. Lizotte A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2017 Reading Committee: Katharyne Mitchell, Chair Victoria Lawson Michael Brown Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Geography ©Copyright 2017 Christopher A. Lizotte University of Washington Abstract The Geopolitics of Laïcité in a Multicultural Age: French Secularism, Educational Policy and the Spatial Management of Difference Christopher A. Lizotte Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Katharyne Mitchell Geography I examine a package of educational reforms enacted following the January 2015 attacks in and around Paris, most notably directed at the offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo. These interventions, known collectively as the “Great Mobilization for the Republic’s Values”, represent the latest in a string of educational attempts meant to reinvigorate a sense of national pride among immigrant-descended youth – especially Muslim – in France’s unique form of state secularism, laïcité. While ostensibly meant to apply equally across the nationalized French school system, in practice La Grande Mobilisation has been largely enacted in schools located in urban spaces of racialized difference thought to be “at risk” of anti-republican behavior. Through my work, I show that practitioners exercise their own power by subverting and adapting geopolitical discourses running through educational laïcité – notably global security, women’s rights, and communalism – are nuanced by school-based practitioners, who interpret state directives in the light of their institutional knowledge and responsiveness to the social and economic profiles of their student populations.
  • Penalizing Holocaust Denial: a View from Europe

    Penalizing Holocaust Denial: a View from Europe

    Penalizing Holocaust Denial: A View from Europe Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias* The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where [there] were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in or- der to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.” 1 General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The alleged Hitlerian gas chambers and the alleged genocide of the Jews form one and the same historical lie, which permitted a gigantic financial swindle whose chief beneficiaries have been the State of Israel and international Zionism, and whose main victims have been the German people and the Palestinian people as a whole. 2 Robert Faurisson. I. INTRODUCTION Incorporating Holocaust denial into the catalogue of issues governed by legal provi- sions, and in particular by the provisions of criminal law, raises a number of under- standable doubts. Aside from the controversies related to the indisputable interference with freedom of speech, there are problems concerning the form of legal provisions that would ban the dissemination of the negationists’ theories, as well as difficulties in guaranteeing the effectiveness and consistency of their proper enforcement.3 * Research Assistant, Poznań Human Rights Centre, Institute of Legal Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Graduate Fellow, Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti- semitism (YIISA), Yale University.
  • From Incitement to Indictment

    From Incitement to Indictment

    Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 98 Article 4 Issue 3 Spring Spring 2008 From Incitement to Indictment - Prosecuting Iran's President for Advocating Israel's Destruction and Piecing Together Incitement Law's Emerging Analytical Framework Gregory S. Gordon Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation Gregory S. Gordon, From Incitement to Indictment - Prosecuting Iran's President for Advocating Israel's Destruction and Piecing Together Incitement Law's Emerging Analytical Framework, 98 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 853 (2007-2008) This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. 0091-4 169/08/9803-0853 THE JOURNALOF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY Vol. 98, No. 3 Copyright 0 2008 by Northwestern Universily, School of Law Printed in U.S.A. FROM INCITEMENT TO INDICTMENT? PROSECUTING IRAN'S PRESIDENT FOR ADVOCATING ISRAEL'S DESTRUCTION AND PIECING TOGETHER INCITEMENT LAW'S EMERGING ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK GREGORY S. GORDON* Israel must be wiped off the face of the map. -Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Let us consult yet, in this long forewhile How to ourselves we may prevent this ill. 2 ,-Homer On October 25, 2005, at an anti-Zionism conference in Tehran, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for Israel to "be wiped off the face of the map "-thefirst in a series of incendiary speeches arguably advocating liquidation of the Jewish state.
  • In Defence of Europe's Memory Laws

    In Defence of Europe's Memory Laws

    In defence of Europe’s memory laws Grażyna Baranowska, Anna Wójcik 6 November 2017 The legal regulation of historical discourse poses significant risks. But there are two, exceptional cases in which memory laws protect free speech, argue Grażyna Baranowska and Anna Wójcik. One privilege of political authority is the ability to propagate collective memory. This can be enacted through a whole host of measures, whether by funding archives and museums, erecting monuments, commemorating historical figures, naming public spaces, or producing history curricula. To greater or lesser degrees, most states regulate such activities with legal restrictions. Numerous states are extending these legal restrictions through memory laws, which attempt to enforce state-approved views on sensitive and disputed chapters of history. Commentators such as Nora and Salvatori [1] have expressed concern at such laws. Using the law to sanction historical narratives directly contradicts the democratic principle of free expression. There are, however, two exceptional instances in which it is legitimate to introduce proportionate limitations to historical discourses. The two cases The first case in which memory laws help to protect free speech is to ban the denial or trivialisation of the Holocaust, genocides, and crimes against humanity. Many European countries have adopted an explicit ban so as to condemn historical atrocities and as a pre- emptive measure against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Research by Michael Bazyler [2] shows that, as of 2016, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania punished Holocaust and Nazi-crimes denial. Meanwhile in Andorra, Cyprus, Hungary, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland the denial of any genocide is punished.
  • Hoofstuk I Fascisme En Die Voortbestaan Daarvan Na 1945

    Hoofstuk I Fascisme En Die Voortbestaan Daarvan Na 1945

    HOOFSTUK I FASCISME EN DIE VOORTBESTAAN DAARVAN NA 1945 few problems in recent ElIOpe8ll history have generated more controversy than the interpretation offascism. " 1 - S.G. Payne 1. Die fascistiese raaisel Die Eerste W~reldoor1og (1914-1918) het die verval van die Westerse wereld se voomeen stabiele nasionale en intemasionale politieke stelsels ingelei. Alhoewel die wortels van die fascisme tot diep in die Europese geskiedenis nagespeur kan word, was die verskynsel hoofsaaklik 'n reaksie op die oor1og en die revolusion~re veranderinge wat dit in die Europese samelewing, politiek en kultuur teweeggebring het. Die onmiddellike oorsprong van die ideologie kan demalwe tot die politieke omstandighede in Italie aan die begin van die twintigste eeu teruggevoer word. 2 Italie se toetrede tot die oor1og in 1915 was hoofsaaklik die gevolg van 'n intensiewe buitepar1ement~re veldtog deur 'n groep revolusion~re intervensioniste en het nooit die goedkeuring van die meerdemeid inwoners weggedra nie. Die intervensioniste, bestaande uit sosialiste, sindikaliste, republikeine en anargiste , was van mening dat Italie se deelname aan die wenkant voordele vir die land sou inhou in die vorm van gebiedsuitbreiding, intemasionale aansien en die instelling van 'n nuwe post-liberale en dinamiese outorit~re regering. Die teleurstellende uitkoms van die vredesluiting het groot ontnugtering en ontevredenheid onder oud-soldate veroorsaak. Hulle het die skuld vir Italie se vemederende neer1ae voor die deur van die neutrale, onpatriotiese sosialiste en die liberale heersersklas gel~. Owarsdeur Ita lie het verenigings van oud-stryders (fasci di combattimento) met uiteenlopende programme tot stand gekom. Onder die inisiatief van Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) is 'n vergadering in Maart 1919 in Milaan bel~ waar die verskillende Fasci (bestaande uit oud-soldate, Futuriste en ne<rsindikaliste) tot die Fasci Italiano di Combattimento saarngesmelt het.
  • Open up the Newspaper, Even in the U.S., and Almost Everyday There Is

    Open up the Newspaper, Even in the U.S., and Almost Everyday There Is

    Open up the newspaper, even in the U.S., and almost everyday there is evidence that Europeans, or at least significant segments of the population, have not learned from the horrors of the 20th century. Although there are powerful forces working against this, the politics of racial and religious hatred is still very much with Europe. There are alarming manifestations of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on a regular basis, in Europe, east and west, north and south. The latest include the antics of the anti-Semitic “humor” of Dieudonne M'bala M'bala with his popularization of the “quenelle,” and the attempts of the French authorities to control this latest fad. Thus, as I composed this lecture, I read in my morning New York Times that a French appeals court ruled to uphold bans on Dieudonne’s performances. Yet, the banning of an innovative form of hate speech, such as this move, does not seem to have its desired effect, despite the actions of officials and the approval of intellectual celebrities, such as Bernard Henry - Levy. Many beyond polite official and intellectual circles persist in their politically incorrect convictions and actions. 1 There has been a documented rise in anti-Semitism, specifically as European Jews understand their own situation, according to an important EU study. And very much along with this rise of anti- Semitism, there is an even more significant rise in Islamophobia. According to a study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are rising in Continental Europe, with the level of Islamophobia outstripping anti-Semitism, as such xenophobic attitudes are in decline in the U.S.
  • Annual Report 2 013 OUR LEADERSHIP MAKES EVERY DAY MATTER

    Annual Report 2 013 OUR LEADERSHIP MAKES EVERY DAY MATTER

    Imagine a World Without Hate® MAKING EVERY DAY MATTER Anti-Defamation League Annual Report 2 013 OUR LEADERSHIP MAKES EVERY DAY MATTER The generous support provided by ADL’s Centennial Committee and our outstanding lay leadership makes our work possible. Many of them are shown below during the ADL Centennial Mission to Israel in November 2013, where they met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, center, and many other high-level members of government. Yoni Reif Yoni ‘For the past century, you’ve stood up for basic human rights for all people.’ – U.S. President Barack Obama What a year it was for us at ADL celebrating our Centennial! Our Imagine a World Without Hate video, conveying in a powerful way the consequences of hate, went viral and was watched by over a million viewers. President Obama, Vice President Biden and other American officials testified to ADL’s great contributions to American society over the last century. And Broadway honored us by revisiting the melodies of the stage that spoke to ADL’s lifetime fight against hate and anti-Semitism. Our celebration was, of course, about the past, but it also was about the future. There are big challenges ahead: global anti-Semitism is spreading, incivility in our politics is undermining the workings of democracy and cyberhate is a growing threat. But the fact that we have succeeded in the past—together with coalition partners and through our voice, our education programs and our grassroots work around the country—all bode well for future success. The connection between the past and the future was what this Centennial year was about.
  • Iran: Profile of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    Iran: Profile of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    Order Code RS22569 Updated July 9, 2008 Iran: Profile of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Hussein D. Hassan Information Research Specialist Knowledge Services Group Summary Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was elected June 24, 2005, to a four-year term, becoming the first non-cleric president in 24 years. He defeated former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a run-off. Prior to his 2005 election to the presidency, Ahmadinejad did not hold an elected office and was a virtual unknown in the international arena. This report covers his background; his victory over the well-known former president Rafsanjani; his remarks about the West, including Israel; and recent visits to Iraq and Latin America. For further information and analysis on Ahmadinejad, Iran, and U.S. options, see CRS Report RL32048, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, by Kenneth Katzman. This report will be updated as warranted. Background Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pronounced mah-MOOD ah-mah-dih- nee-ZHAHD) was born in 1956 in the village of Aradan near the city of Garmsar, southeast of Tehran. The fourth son of seven children of an ironworker, he and his family moved to Tehran for better economic opportunity. Their move to Tehran coincided with the change of his family name. His family’s original name was Saborjhian.1 The family name change provides an insight into the devoutly Islamic working-class roots of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s brand of populist politics. His solidarity with the most downtrodden is also believed to have been influenced by his father, Ahmad, who, after running a grocery store and then a barber shop in Aradan, became a blacksmith in Tehran.